You did say the stator gear fell out... so it's not unlikely it was touching it. Whether it was causing enough heat to do that or not, I wouldn't know. And by looking at the stator cover, you can see it's been at least knocked a bit. Then again, I have the same cover and have had it on just about every bike I've owned and they're mega solid... the bolts that hold the stator gear have all to be red loctited and etc. It's pretty strange that it came loose at all.